Lawang Sewu Interiors :

Lawang Sewu means “Thousand Doors” and it’s a landmark in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, built as the headquarters of the Dutch East Indies Railway Company. The name comes from its design, with numerous doors and arcs, so the locals named it Lawang Sewu or “Thousand Doors”, because, they see so many doors in this building. The building has about 600 large windows. The colonial era building is famous as a haunted building, though the Semarang city government has attempted to re-brand it. The Lawang Sewu Interiors is fully restored but some locals do not like it because they say the originality is lost.

The complex consists of several buildings, two main ones named A and B and two smaller ones named C and D, on Pemuda Street. The L-shaped A building faces the Tugu Muda roundabout. There are two identical towers on A building, which were originally used to store water, each with a capacity of 7,000 liters. The building features large stained-glass windows and a grand staircase in the center. There was also once an underground tunnel connecting A building to several other sites in the city, including the governor’s mansion and the harbour.

The B building is located behind A building. It is three stories in height, with the first two floors consisting of offices and the third holding a ballroom. The building, with high, large windows, also has a basement floor that is kept partially flooded to serve to cool the building through evaporation. In front of A building stands a monument to five employees killed during the Indonesian War of Independence.

After the war, the Indonesian army took over the complex. It was later returned to the national railway company. In 1992 it was declared a Cultural Property of Indonesia.